PUTRAJAYA: The Perlis government has filed a review application at the Federal Court in an attempt to reinstate the religious status of single mother Loh Siew Hong’s three children as Muslims.
Lawyer Zainul Rijal Abu Bakar, when contacted, confirmed the review application, submitted under Rule 137 of the Federal Court Rules 1995, was filed on Tuesday (Oct 29).
He said the state government had given him fiat to initiate the review application on their behalf.
Loh’s lawyer, Dr Shamsher Singh Thind, when contacted, said the court fixed Nov 29 for case management for the review application.
In the notice of motion, which was obtained by Bernama, the state government is requesting the Federal Court to set aside its previous decision, which denied the application for leave to appeal by the state government and three other parties.
The leave application was dismissed on May 14, preventing the applicants, including Perlis Islamic Religious and Malay Customs Council (MAIPs), the Perlis State Registrar of Converts and Perlis mufti Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin from proceeding with their appeals in the Federal Court to challenge the Court of Appeal’s Jan 10 decision.
The Court of Appeal nullified the children’s conversion to Islam and declared them as Hindus.
In the review application, the state government stated that the prior Federal Court panel's decision had severely compromised their right to be heard, and they are seeking a rehearing of the leave to appeal application.
In 2023, the High Court dismissed Loh’s judicial review application to annul her children’s conversion to Islam.
The 37-year-old single mother filed the application on March 25, 2022, seeking a declaration that her three children are Hindus and asserting that her ex-husband, M. Nagahswaran, who converted to Islam, lacked the legal capacity to register their children as converts without her consent.
The three children, who were initially placed under the care of the Social Welfare Department, were returned to Loh on Feb 21, 2022, after the High Court granted her habeas corpus application. - Bernama
